Lamb Dijon Stew

The mustard from the last post reminded me of a lamb stew my mother had made growing up. She sent me a copy of the recipe (book unknown--I will ask her). She had changed basically every measurement, but the concept is the same. I changed them again according to what I had available.


INGREDIENTS:

• 6 tbsp all-purpose flour, not sifted
• 1 1/4 tsp salt (estimated)
• 1/2 tsp pepper (estimated)
• Olive oil for saute
• 2 lbs butterflied leg of lamb, cut into 1" cubes
• 2 lbs Russet potatoes, peeled
• 6 tbsp homemade mustard
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (I used bottled)
• 2 tbsp processed chopped garlic (use 1 head fresh if time)
• Most of one package (32 oz) Pacific low sodium beef broth--mixed use (see procedure).

PROCEDURE:

1. Began heating 20 oz broth (recommended quantity) in slow cooker.
2. Mix flour, salt, pepper in a zip-loc bag
3. Add meat to bag and shake to coat. (Did not work--too much meat. Use mixing bowl.)
4. Heat oil in wide steel pot. Brown all meat together over med-high heat, stirring occasionally until browned. (~10 minutes). The oil was absorbed by the first layer of meat to make contact--not sure it actually did anything. Maybe try omitting?
5. At this point, there was a caked-on layer of flour at the bottom of the pan. I deglazed it using ~8 oz more of the beef broth. Might as well use all of it next time. Transfered deglazed mixture into slow cooker.
6. Combined all ingredients in slow cooker.
7. Cooked 4 hours on low.
8. Switched to high 2 more hours.
9. Allowed to cool, partially covered, for 1 hour before transferring to refrigerator.

Served with wide egg noodles.

NOTES:

• Really exceptional
• Recipe must have been written for very high sodium broth--this needed a lot of salt at the end
• Use even more mustard next time
• Recipe originally called for new potatoes, unpeeled; I used peeled russet because I had to minimize texture for a dental procedure.
• Recipe also called for frozen green peas, added 15 minutes before end of cooking; left out for same reason
• Recipe called for 3/4 tsp dried rosemary, which I did not have
• Put both back in next time